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Oh boy oh boy oh boy! This month of Jack Kirby
Specials gets better and better for me, since one of my most favorite Kirby
(and Joe Simon) properties is the Sandman! The Sandman is, generally speaking,
on of my favorite characters; from the gas mask-wearing Wesley Dodds and the
Simon and Kirby yellow and purple costume revamp, to the Bronze Age superhero
monitoring dreams with Brute and Glob, to Neil Gaiman’s goth version that is
arguably best-known, I love all of these versions. But the Bronze Age Sandman
gets the least recognition! So let’s recognize it together, in my review of Sandman Oversize Special #1, right here!

Explain
It!

So this comic consists of three sections: two new
stories, and then some Jack Kirby reprints like the other books from this
series of one-shots. The first one is by Dan Jurgens and Jon Bogdanove, and
it’s a fairly textbook Sandman story in that Sandy, Brute and Glob enter a
creative child’s nightmares to dispense of them before they infect the waking
world. I thought it was picture-perfect, evoking a lot of Jack Kirby’s familiar
style while retaining much of Bogdanove’s uniqueness. There’s a great spread of
Sandman’s team traveling through a dream space that is really reminiscent of
when Kirby would strip in photographs to his more elaborate works. Jurgens
understands these characters and the material explicitly, and had this come from
one of those few Bronze Age issues, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. I don’t
expect to see it, but I could stand to read more stories like this. There’s
even a new superhero character, of sorts, that could have been ripped right
from the files of Jack Kirby…and it was, kind of…just read the thing and find
out what happens!

The second story is by Steve Orlando and Rick
Leonardi, and it’s also a good homage to the source material. If anything, it’s
a little too slavishly devoted to the minutiae, and not the spirit of the
original material, but it’s still pretty entertaining, and includes an adult
version of Jed, who was the little kid that Sandman rescued from bad dreams
most often, back in the day. The issue concludes with something a little
incongruous, the “Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!” two-page exposés of
the Project, a secret government agency that could be found in the pages of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen when Jack
was writing and drawing it. Again, this material is fairly available but it is
highly bizarre—almost like a series of Ripley’s
Believe It Or Not! strips about some dystopian future run by genetic
scientists. I enjoyed the heck out them, but if you were looking for more
Sandman-specific content, you won’t find it here.

This is my favorite issue in the Jack Kirby series so
far, but that’s largely owing to the fact that I love the characters and their
trappings already. Like with the two comics preceding this, if you’re not
already a fan of Sandman, then this is a bad place to jump in. Those already familiar
with the character will find the two new stories right in lock step with the
original comics, each with its own artistic interpretation of Kirby’s style,
and each cool in its own way. The back-up stuff is sort of strange and
meaningless to Sandman, and might annoy those that were hoping for reprints of the
actual comic at hand. But those that enjoy high weirdness should appreciate ‘em
just fine.

Bits and
Pieces:

Fans of Sandman, here's the plan: head to the comic shop and respect the man; that's Jack "King" Kirby, uh, he wasn't a Furby...um, drove real swervy...okay, that was a big fail. But this comic isn't, for established fans of the character. Folks looking to get familiar for the first time should probably check the archives. A lack of Sandman content at the back knocked my score down a bit, but it's still a good bang for your [five] bucks.

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